Nine lives of a Diclonius
by Bobbadguy
Summary: She betrayed her kind. She took away her own future. But she saved the people she cherished. Do Diclonius have souls? Is life a predestined path?
1. Prelude

**Disclaimer:** **Elfen Lied the manga is the property of Shueisha, written by Lynn Okamoto. The anime series is the property of Arms Studio, with Mamuro Kanbe as director. I do not own either and the characters do not belong to me. This is purely a fanfiction not for profit.**

**Thank you for reading and please support the series.**

* * *

Prelude

"If love plays rough with you, play rough with love. If you prick love when when it pricks you, you'll beat love down." Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

* * *

She coldly turned her back on him with a silence that screamed.

If she escapes here, she wins.

If she wins, humanity ends.

He dies.

If Kouta dies…..

If…..

It was a life that hurt Lucy simply by imagining it. Could it be that like humans, Diclonius's imagination served in favour of their survival, a sixth sense averting a grim dark timeline where freedom is a promised lie; a place devoid of anything but pain? Did Diclonius species ever have a choice in their existence? Is there any purpose to be here at all? Will her kind be forgiven?

Remembering the traumatized statue of Kouta the night she murdered his family. She decided.

She will not blow into the horns of doom.

"DON'T GO!" A voice more like a desperate plea than a command. A pair of arms tangled her into an embrace that was something warm against the freezing night.

The abruptness made her gasp.

"But Kouta I killed your family." Shot back the reply from her soft raspy voice.

"I can't explain it. There's no way I can forgive what you did to Kanae or my dad, I'll never get them back. But I can't, I can't let you go knowing that you'll hurt people." Kouta was breathing fast and hard.

She closed her eyes in guilt as if trying not to replay her life in a gory movie.

But Lucy can't explain it. Why can't Kouta hate a murderer? Isn't hate a normal part of humanity? Why were his tones so comforting and confident? Why did she love him too? She was born to be a killer? How did love serve her in any way?

"I want to put a stop to the bloodshed." He hugged her tighter as if the wind could take her.

"Besides, I loved that little girl I met a so long ago, and I love Nyu. She's like nobody I've ever met." She felt it distinctively real in the breath that gently brushed over her shoulders. Words of genuine love poured out for beloved people.

By the time her eyes were open, the eyelids shivered vigorously.

Her vision was getting watery.

"Kouta." The mighty Diclonius queen finally found a firm voice that made Kouta relinquish his grip for her pair of crimson gem to gaze into his.

Their mouth suddenly attracted like the opposite pole of magnets. Their lips interwined. It felt. Good.

Humanity.

Evolution.

Fate.

Destiny.

She cared neither.

It was their second and last kiss and the brief minute spanned longer than millennial.

The time he said her horns were 'cute.'

The fun times at the zoo.

The splash battle.

It was all coming back to her now.

"I want to forget about everything, so nothing could every come between us." She locked his gaze, unable to take more 'love' before her ice cold heart melts.

"Kouta, I'm sorry for all the sadness I've caused you." She whispered. "I'm sorry."

He quavered and wept perhaps more so than Lucy herself. "I'm sorry too. I know your life's been hard, you didn't deserve that sadness. I wish I could've done something."

With no need for any more words. They hugged each other for the final time.

Lucy found herself wandering like a dazed sheep, glaring warily at the soldiers. No more human is going to die tonight.

She reached up to the skies. Not wanting to use 'vectors' again. No more decapitation. No more blood. If there's a heaven, she was gonna reach it and see if she can get in.

She didn't mind the sleet of bullets as she imagined the rattling to be the soft keys of piano the music box imitated. So sad, tragic. Yet so touching and beautiful. Is this the real face of the world? Bullets punctured and crawled into her flesh like maggots eating her but Lucy only felt the cold of splashing water.

Better sleep forever in a cherished dream carefree than rule with dominion over hell.

* * *

Kouta never knew what happened that night, except collecting the last horn of memory like seashell on a beach.

Vivid nightmares of Lucy's cold corpse with white eyes staring at nothing, lying on the stone cold linoleum haunted him frequently.

Every last day of the Summer Festive of every year he went up through the trees.

Against the rain and the scorching sun. He always stood in the promised sweet spot.

He waited for her.

The first time, Yuka consoled him to forget it like Lucy asked him to.

"She made me promise." He politely replied back.

The second time, it was late to 3 and just about the time he stepped back he thought a haunting music box echoed through the forest. But it was gone as easily as a trick of the imagination.

Soon the times were getting out of count.

The last time, out of the corner of his eyes, he swore he saw swirls of pink and black hair and two kids running together. The boy praised the girl's 'cuteness,' a surreal hope only to be extinguished ruthless at the bite of Bando's knuckles. Hammering him like nails.

"It seems we're waiting for the same bitch kid." The monster gave Kouta the hardest bone crunching blow which splintered his ribs before he could get up. Kouta still swore to today that he would break every joint in the man's body if it weren't for the fact he couldn't breathe.

The weird thing to this day however, was that Kouta never hated him one bit. Rather he felt the sadness and pain Bando was drinking down his throat.

"Can't believe a pathetic soft dog like you deserve a place in man's world." Bando cursed with rabid foams accompanied by a sickening scent of alcohol and suffocating liquor.

"Glad that slut's dead. I really feel sorry for ya" He would chant while crushing Kouta's nose like a garlic clove in mortar with a ferocious headbutt while latching to Kouta's shirt so tight it was about to tear in half.

Before Kouta regained his senses, Bando's head was cracked from behind with a wooden music from Yuka. A new sense of the phrase 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,' caved into the back of Bando's skull. Rain poured and thunder shook the earth. The strobe of lightning wasn't making things easier for Kouta's awareness.

The box was held perpendicularly above her head for another blow.

But a quick click and a chill nuzzle of a Desert Eagle pressed and bruised the bridge of her nose.

All the magnificent prowess of Yuka died down as she dropped to her bottoms and the music box sank into the mud.

Enjoying her groans as he pressed that nuzzle deeper and beat her while Kouta could only weakly cry and beg clutching the dirty music box with a red tint of blood.

He took a lock of Yuka's hair and nearly flung them off the scalp.

The jerking was enough to knock down trees.

"Ha. And what exactly the flying fuck can ya to do'bout it lady?" He maliciously revealed his glowing yellow tooth, enjoying the fact that the fearsome woman completely changed into a new scared being with the power of guns. Bando abruptly found a pair of hands holding his legs like vines to a tree root.

Kouta emitted all sounds of despair he known in his life.

Bando smiled.

"HUH!?" He pulled the trigger.

Kouta signed to his relief that killing _wasn't_ its purpose. Though he can't say the same for the little wood mice that was injured though.

"And the next time ya here. I'll make sure the rain becomes your and that woman's brain's mist." He warned. The pair of eyes glowed malevolently like those of a wolf when he descended back into the shadows.

Another bullet flew from the dark near Kouta's foot that made him crawl for his life and scramble away. The man was playing guns like toys.

Yuka would later angrily ask why he would clutch and still care for the worthless box, without a sign of helping or running or simply calling 911.

They cursed at each other with the most hideous scorns they've ever known, till the moon was high in the sky and the argument turned into a passionate pillow fight with giggles.

Eventually stopping when both stayed up all night just listening to the old music box. Appreciating the miracle of being alive, being able to love and feel.

To cherish every second of existence in Lucy's honour.

* * *

Thus Kouta's life so far was still empty and lifeless in some ways. In others, he eventually recovered through the need of responsibility to work and his family. He no longer visited that place anymore. Never again thought of Lucy, Keade nor Nyu.

That's till one morning.

Kouta like all other times wandered to the front door without any attention to the surroundings. Oblivious to the annoying light reflecting off some kid's telescope. Didn't even saw the shadow at the door. He didn't even remember why he was walking to the door in his sleepy state.

The noise of the clocks is what alerted him. His body jumped at the reminiscent figure. It looked like...

Someone familiar.

He opened the door.

"Oh. Hi Dr. Arakawa." He flatly droned in dismay.

"Anything I could help you with." He knew it. That false hope should have been dropped long ago. Lucy is not in this world anymore.

"Look. I may be followed. I have something urgent!" Was all she managed to communicate between breaths before a noise spilled blood on the gate and Arakawa shrieked in pain clutching her shoulders?


	2. Kidnapped

**Hi guys. A.D. Reynolds & IdlePigeon. Thank you so much for the fav. Plus you don't really have to get too worked up on O.C. but it would be great if he/she gets invented. All the good wishes for that.**

**Disclaimer:** **Elfen Lied the manga is the property of Shueisha, written by Lynn Okamoto. The anime series is the property of Arms Studio, with Mamuro Kanbe as director. I do not own either and the characters do not belong to me. This is purely a fanfiction not for profit. This is simply a re imagination of the anime conclusion.**

**Thank you for reading and please support the series.**

* * *

Kidnapped

* * *

It didn't take a minute before the Maples House was almost flattened by men with Heckler and Kosch, advancing like tanks. Kouta's immediate instinct was to put a wig onto Nana's vibrantly pink hair from years of camouflaging her against the ever increasing xenophobic public.

Kouta, wanting no more trauma to his family was forced to surrender Arakawa, who now was beaten to a purple pulp by men who chanted ritualistically about how the 'disease' ruined their lives.

The leader could only threaten by firing shots to stop the barbaric dance of the tribe over the semi dead woman. If she wasn't dead from the blood loss on her right shoulders already.

The memories of Kanae and father forced up the soumen noodles up Kouta's throat in outbursts of vomit from the pressure and the tear gas. Was this 'disease' about Lucy and the Diclonius?

Fate answered his thoughts.

"Kouta you idiot! You were close to that girl right? That girl with horns and pink hair?" Arakawa spat out the blood as an impatient member stomped hard into her back like a fist into dough.

"You jerks! We've got to find her. If they get to her! We're all dead! You hear! You can't do this!" She stretched her hand piercing the waves of men beating her and lifting her to be arrested.

While Kouta never had any close relationships with Dr. Arakawa, he wasn't a man who could stand and watch someone in pain neither.

"STOP!" He screamed at the top of his lungs which miraculously stopped the madness of the arrest frenzy. "You're not making any sense Mister. This is Dr. Arakawa at the University research center. She's my science lecture and why on-"

"Shut up fool!" The man pointed a finger that poked him in the forehead. "And stay away from this woman, she is dangerous on every level and every evidence we have points to her work as somehow related to this epidemic which is soon to become a pandemic." Interrupted the man before Kouta could blink at the warning.

Kouta still pushed past and barely dodged a baton swung at him. He closed in till he prevented Arakawa from faceplanting into the ground when the men let go.

He was perfectly aware of the background shrieks of Yuka for him to stay out of it but his senses were frying with electrical impulses he can't decide what's rational against what feels right.

"Look, this is not the method! How could a-" Kouta stopped speaking when the painful tip of a chilling needle pressed against his neck. He gulped enough air to fill a zeppelin, totally disbelieving that Arakawa was mere millimeters from injecting him with gas to kill him by air embolism, or some disease, she wasn't even trembling. She is going to do it. He might die.

"Lower your weapon! Or I'm not joking. This young man dies." Arakawa deliberately moved inside the house to avoid snipers. Her behaviour changed entirely from that of a wounded woman to a psycho.

Arakawa remained apathetic to the scream Yuka gave which made Kouta a million more times afraid of dying than he already was. '_Yuka, don't let Nana or Mayu do something stupid. Please_!' The thought circulated in his head over and over as if he was praying.

His prayers were rejected as his peripheral vision showed a flicker of Nana doing something foolish.

"Hey lady, how many more people do you want to kill?" A member of the capture team took out a photo. "See this? My daughter only 3. Only 3 years old. Do you enjoy doing this?" The man's emotional and sad pleas were ignored as Arakawa cursed out foul words. But mysteriously, the syringe was knocked out of her hands.

"What's that?!" Gasps of horror emerged as gazes shifted to Nana who was standing by. Her gaze full of traumatized shock.

Instantly, fires went off. It was shoot first, think later for anyone regarding the 'monsters.'

Kouta tried to scream for his family but his mouth was forced shut by Arakawa who took another needled and took him just as a white van crashed straight in. Officially declaring the House of Maples as the House of horribly demolished rubbles.

Kouta felt a flare inside him trying to take off but his vision turned black as Arakawa dragged him into to a place where he didn't belong. His fear overwhelmed him so fully he didn't feel the injection.

While some men still firing were hesitant, enough panic from commanding members drove them into chasing the escaping fugitives on the run. The vehicle went so quickly as if it flew.

Nana couldn't resist the flood of salt water in her eyes. Everything is just trashed. Though she didn't have another sight of the ruins before Mayu and Yuka took her hand and vehemently dragged her to the bathroom where they have built a cavity should the need to hide their beloved 'Diclonius' ever arise.

"I-I-j-just-want-K-Kouta to be-safe." She gasped out in horror like a child who had wronged her parents.

Soon sirens sounded. Standard police barged in, questioning if there's any unusual signs in the house and if one of the 'monster children' was in here.

A search party thoroughly scanned the place but thanks to Yuka's information that there was a Diclonius who escaped with Kidnappers, the team never focused much attention on the unusual gradient of the flooring in the bathroom.

Every lady of the house was shedding tears. Their precious Kouta was kidnapped and possibly in life threatening danger. The bitterness was enough to put them off from having dinner.

Their secret may just be exposed. Mayu and Yuka sat on the cold concrete curbs, not wanting to possibly enter their residence and given hints that they're hiding someone.

"You okay there Miss?" A familiar voice asked. "You could stay at my apartment tonight, if you want. I'm pretty lost too." A hand brushed away a lock of pink hair.

Yuka was shaken. Mayu nearly wet her pants seeing the owner of the voice's face.

* * *

"Hey Dr. Arakawa, that's some stunt you've pulled there. How's the bandages?" A voice seemingly spoke between Kouta's sleepy state and awakened consciousness.

"Just hurry up and get us to a medical center. Do you want me to bleed to death?" Someone replied frantically.

Kouta turned and tossed in the van, the darkness assured him that it was just a nightmare. His eyes snapped open when he wanted to stretch but found his hands and feet tied.

"YOU!" Kouta gasped towards the wary Dr. Arakawa.

"Sorry kiddo but school's closing early for the final year because of the epidemic." She blew at the coffee in her polystyrene container.

"And I'm going to have to set some serious homework which may get us both killed." She sipped and gurgled before spitting out the mixture of disgusting coffee and blood and teeth…

"You make horrible coffee even after all these years." She complained to herself.

"The hell did I do to you? I want to see my family. And forget about your sick homework." Kouta wriggled like a worm in a bird's beak.

Dr. Arakawa's eyes transitioned from wariness to resolve but quickly back to the 'I'm not bothered,' state again when her bandaged right shoulder ached. Small amounts of blood still oozed. Arakawa still seemed very zombie like with her pale lips.

"Uh. I need some painkillers before the usual pep talks." She struggled with his jerking head to put a blindfold on before mumbling a 'sorry' when he yelled in pain from her spilled coffee.

"I must be crazy." She groaned as Kouta continuously chirped names and for help.

"Kouta. Forget what I said about sleeping in class and just doze off already!" She gagged his mouth with polystyrene. "Don't make it anymore difficult for a bleeding woman!"


End file.
